Joe Biden’s Asia message: Don’t worry

Vice President Joe Biden returned home Friday morning after an Asian trip that seemed designed to convey one message: There’s nothing wrong with the U.S. economy.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Biden told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing, the most important stop in his 11-day trip. “We appreciate your investment in U.S. Treasurys. And very sincerely, I want to make clear that you have nothing to worry about in terms of their — their viability.”

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POLITICO 44

During Biden’s brief stop in Tokyo, where one of the administration’s main goals was to display its support for Japan’s post-earthquake and tsunami recovery, Washington’s budget woes once again crept into the vice president’s public remarks.

“I make the point that while you’re struggling to deal with one of the greatest natural disasters any country has faced, we are dealing with getting our budget in order,” Biden told Prime Minister Naoto Kan. “There are voices in the world who are counting us out. They’re making a very bad bet.”

Jim Sasser, the former Tennessee senator and ambassador to China under President Bill Clinton, said that when he spent time with officials from the Chinese embassy earlier this week, it was clear that Beijing’s representatives in Washington were pleased with his visit.

“It appears Biden did an excellent job of reassuring them on the question of debt,” Sasser said, “and was also a public relations success there. They just kept bringing him up over and over again — apparently they really like Joe Biden.”

While the White House attempted to keep the spotlight of the first leg of Biden’s trip focused on his chance to get to know China’s future leadership — including his counterpart and presumed next head of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping — the vice president’s mid-August jaunt came at a strategically critical time for U.S.-Chinese economic relations.

“Given the remarkable financial interdependence between the two economies, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if the Chinese saw potential value of their assets going down, and that it would be a real source of concern,” said Jonathan Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center. “[China] clearly wanted that assurance that these assets are not going to somehow plummet in value.”

Wang Baodong, the spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told POLITICO that Biden’s visit was both “positive and constructive,” and gave an optimistic view of the U.S. economy.

“We believe the U.S. is capable of overcoming its current economic difficulties and we hope China’s legitimate economic and financial interests will be safeguarded,” Wang said. “We also hope the U.S. will take genuine actions to respect China’s core national interests and handle the differences properly, so that a healthy, sustainable and favorable relationship will be maintained.”

This wasn’t the first time Biden was dispatched overseas to smooth out ruffled diplomatic feathers — reassuring foreign leaders has become an important part of his job description.

In October 2009, when Ukraine, Georgia and other Eastern European nations were unsettled by President Barack Obama’s seeming eagerness to reset U.S.-Russian relations, Biden hit the road to reassure them that their interests would not take a backseat to Washington’s efforts to strengthen its ties with the Kremlin.

John Kun, vice president and COO of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, said Biden’s trip helped to “calm nerves” both inside and outside of Ukraine.

odd - wasn't there an article on politico within past 2 days about how Biden rejected the notion that his trip was not about the economy (remarks reportedly made in Japan on a US air base). Why doesn't this report try to reconcile its content with previous one?

Can you imagine how you'd feel if Joe Biden said don't worry to you? Poor Joe, he tries so hard. According to the Daily Rash, Joe got so ripped at a White House picnic that secret service escorted him home! www.thedailyrash.com/a-drunk-joe-biden-rambles-incoherently-at-white-house-picnic

Joe Biden is an embarrassment to the United States. He is why I pray every night for the good health of Obama and will continue to do so until they are replaced by a competent Republican President in January 2013.

Thank Goodness we live in a Republican Democracy...where we can kick the bums out if they fail in their jobs every 4 years. Goodbye, So Long Obama/Biden...It's time for Real Hope and Change.

President Barack Hussein Obama demands that there be higher taxes on "the rich" and private companies nearly every time he speaks these days. One area where he misses the mark concerns corporate tax rates, where the U.S. is already under-competitive versus many of our most important trading partners. What follow are national and local "Combined Corporate Tax Rates" for ten of the 30 countries of the OECD, with the highest such rates in that organization, as of 2010:

The U.S. needs lower corporate tax rates to promote job creation by the private sector in the U.S. Lower corporate tax rates would make the U.S. a more attractive site for foreign and domestic investors alike. It would serve to attract U.S. corporate funds that are parked overseas. It would make the U.S. a more competitive platform for companies selling to foreign nations. Lower corporate tax rates would eventually raise more taxes to pay for public goods.

We need to have a federal government that is mostly oriented to promoting jobs through encouraging the private sector by creating a positive investment climate. This means lower, not higher, corporate taxes, among other things.

President Obama is a poor economic manager and needs to be voted out of office in 2012!

underground bunkers, the Pentagon disclosed in its annual report to Congress on the Chinese military.

China is thought to have up to 75 long-range nuclear missiles, including hard-to-find, road-mobile DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to the report, which was released Wednesday. China also has 120 intermediate- and medium-range missiles.

“China is both qualitatively and quantitatively improving its strategic missile forces,” the report states. “Beijing will likely continue to invest considerable resources to maintain a limited nuclear force … to ensure the [People’s Liberation Army] can deliver a damaging retaliatory nuclear strike.”

The report states for the first time that China appears to be developing a third road-mobile ICBM, possibly capable of carrying a multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicle.

China has only one real enemy / threat in the world...none dare call it for what it is. There is only one reason they are rapidly building up and expanding their offensive capabilities to include aircraft carriers. They will get what they are owed - one way or the other, is their philosophy. Anyone who eductates themselves on China knows what this brutal Communist regime and the mentality is - underneath all this media pumping attempt for Biden that we have seen lately.

The military, government and think tanks have been handwringing and worrying about the Chinese military build up for quite some time now. They are playing America like the naive sucker it has become.